


songs we forgot to play

by justsomejerk



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex and Isobel are the BFFs We Deserve, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Casual Discussions of Homophobia, Discussion of Fake Dating/Bearding, Gen, Kyle Valenti is a Good Friend, Kyle Valenti/Isobel Evans - Freeform, Misunderstandings, POV Alternating, References to Forlex and Malex, References to Homophobia and Child Abuse, References to Underage Sexual Content, most characters make minor appearances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomejerk/pseuds/justsomejerk
Summary: During their senior year, a love letter dropped in the wrong locker leads Isobel Evans and Alex Manes to cross paths and reluctantly strike up a friendship.
Relationships: Isabel Evans & Alex Manes
Comments: 22
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as a platonic Isobel-Alex spin on this prompt from @powderseal on Tumblr: I wrote my crush a note except I started it with ‘dear you’ and my friend stuck it into the wrong locker and now you think I have a crush on you.
> 
> It quickly spun out on control into a multi-chapter AU thing and here we are.
> 
> It is really more of a canon divergent fic rather than AU. Basically, a few characters made slightly different choices earlier in the RNM timeline that sent them on different paths, and now Isobel and Alex get to be the besties they were always meant to be.
> 
> Title from Alphaville's Forever Young.

“Listen, you seem… well. Like a bitch. But that’s beside the point. The note would have been hot, if I were into that kinda thing.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Isobel’s tone is icy and her eyes wide. She was sitting on the bleachers, her legs crossed primly, watching football practice with a sharp eye when Alex had come storming up to her, brandishing a folded piece of notebook paper. She glances over at it, still clutched in Alex’s hand, and there is a flash of pink. A lipstick kiss. Alex sees her seeing it, and notes the growing flush in her cheeks.

Alex hesitates, subtly shaking his head. “Uh, your note? The one asking me to meet you after the Homecoming game next week for a, uh, one-on-one celebration?” 

“Excuse me? Wh-” Isobel stops herself, rolls her eyes and continues under her breath, as if to herself, “Dammit, Max.”

Alex scowls and crosses his arms, allowing the silence to lengthen until the normally poised Isobel Evans elaborates.

“It wasn’t meant to go in _your_ locker, Manes. I’m well aware I’m not your type.”

“What exactly is my type, Evans?”

“A bit scruffier. Not nearly as hot as me. Rugged.” She responds with a hand on her hip and an eyebrow arched just so.

Alex’s eyes narrow. They are both aware he isn’t exactly _out_ in the formal sense, but no one talks about that fact. While everyone knows Alex Manes is gay, there is a tacit agreement among most kids at school that no one acknowledges it. Not after the time Kyle Valenti’s circle of jocks tried throwing around a few slurs and were greeted with Kyle’s fists. After that, knowing the most popular and well-liked kid in school wouldn’t tolerate that type of bullying, everyone mostly left Alex alone. 

“So you’re not doing some messed up straight girl shit where you try to seduce me into straightness?”

Isobel wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Eww. I may be a bitch, but I’m not a monster. It was intended for someone else.”

Alex glares down at her, curiosity now bleeding into his irritation. He notices Isobel’s eyes drifting beyond him back to the football field and he turns, trying to follow her gaze.

All the way to Kyle. 

His best friend. 

Who just happens to have a locker next to his.

He subtly shakes his head to himself before sighing and taking a seat next to her. 

She scowls at him and sits up straighter as he reluctantly wades into the love life of his tragically heterosexual best friend. “So is your type softhearted frat boy football players with exceptional cheekbones?”

“Oh, shut up, Manes.”

“He’s a lot nicer than you.”

“Be careful, Guyliner. You better not be trying to claim I’m not good enough for your friend.”

“That’s not what I said. But he generally doesn’t waste his time on people who treat his friends like trash.”

“Ugh, is this about DeLuca? Cause I didn’t start that! She interrupted the pep rally that I worked _so_ hard to organize with her ridiculous political performance art bullshit-”

“I’m not saying he would be opposed to a homecoming hookup, Evans. Just that he has kind of a code when it comes to how he chooses his friends these days.”

“Because his old friends turned out to be homophobic bullies?” Isobel gives him a knowing look.

He responds with an expression of lighthearted derision. “That may have played a role.”

“You know, I really thought for a while he was gonna turn into one of them. It looked like it was going that way back in junior high. What changed?”

Alex turns back to the field to watch Kyle score a touchdown and his teammates tackle him in celebration and offers a weak and evasive response. “I don’t know.” 

Even as his eyes are tracking the movements on the field, he realizes this is the longest one-on-one conversation he’s ever had with Isobel Evans, despite her moving to town when she was seven years old. 

Alex turns to her with a strange look on his face and asks, “What about Michael Guerin?”

“What _about_ Michael?”

“I mean.. haven’t you guys been sleeping together forever?”

He has never seen an expression of such disgust in his life. Not even on his father’s face the few times he has been forced to acknowledge his son’s sexuality. 

“What the- Eww! Michael is like a brother to me. Oh my _God_.” Isobel gives a full-body shake as if to cleanse herself of the imagery Alex planted in her head.

“That’s been the rumour for years.”

“Why are you so interested, anyway? You into my brother?”

Alex raises a doubtful eyebrow in her direction. “Nah. Just looking out for my friend.”

Rolling her eyes, she playfully pokes an elbow into Alex’s side and comments, “Protecting him from the big bad blonde from the Event Planning Committee, huh?”

“You know he already has a date to homecoming, right? Even though he and Liz broke up, they’re still going together as friends.”

The sharp jerk of her head tells him she didn’t know. 

She abruptly stands, wiping nonexistent crumbs off her flared jeans and turning to stomp away, effectively ending the conversation.

Not really knowing why, Alex follows.

She throws a sideways glance his way but doesn’t slow her pace as she strides towards the parking lot. 

Once he has caught up and fallen into step beside her, he decides to risk teasing her a bit. “You’re used to getting your way, huh?” 

Her lips are pursed tightly as she reaches into her giant shoulder bag and rifles around until they both hear the clanging of keys. Alex scowls at the pink pom-pom keychain holder as she continues her determined stride towards her car.

“What, you’re not even gonna talk to me now that you’ve lost your chance at banging the quarterback?”

At that, she stops mid stride, puts a hand on her hip and points a finger in Alex’s face. “I haven’t lost my chance, Manes. I just don’t happen to understand why everyone in this town is in love with Liz Ortecho.”

Alex finds himself softening slightly at her defensiveness. It betrays a mild insecurity he suspected lay underneath her brittle exterior, so he throws her a bone. 

Besides, Kyle would be so pissed at him if he knew Alex was responsible for screwing up a chance for him to hook up with a girl as hot as Isobel Evans. 

“He’s not into her anymore. They really are just friends. And honestly, I think you two might work together. I’ll drop the letter in the right locker before I head home today.”

“No.” Isobel shakes her head. “No, I have a better idea. We’ll go together, you and me. You and Kyle are connected at the hip, so we’ll all hang out and he can see what he’s missing out on by going to dances with his exes instead of with me. And knowing I’ll be hanging out with Liz means Max will actually agree to go, so he can swoon at her all night and stutter out some chemistry references he memorized from a textbook to impress her.” 

“Are you actually asking me to the homecoming dance?”

“No. I’m not asking, I’m telling. My mom is taking me to Santa Fe on Saturday to shop for a dress, and you’re coming so we can get you a proper suit that matches. Give me your phone.” 

When he read the letter originally, he thought it must be some cruel prank. That someone was finally brave enough to risk being publicly chewed out by Kyle Valenti. But Isobel Evans wasn’t the type to do something like that, so instead of tossing it, he went barrelling around the school campus to find her. He didn’t stop to consider what might happen when he confronted her about the misguided proposition, but he definitely couldn’t have predicted it would end in Isobel implying she would be forcing him to attend a school function as her date. He is so taken aback by the turn of events that he simply lays his phone in her outstretched palm. Isobel promptly enters her phone number and sends herself a text, leaving him slack-jawed in her wake as she proceeds to drive away without further comment. 

Later that night, Alex is having a tense dinner with his father and Flint, who is home on leave for a few weeks. At one point, Jesse gruffly pushes Alex to help Flint out on the base on Saturday, and he relishes the opportunity to tartly respond, “Actually, I’m going to be in Santa Fe. I’m going to homecoming with Isobel Evans and her mom is taking us shopping for our outfits.”

The startled shock on Jesse’s face is worth it. “Isobel Evans? Ann’s daughter?”

“Yes.” 

Jesse’s face is suspicious, cold. Yet what follows is an expression of cautious approval. “Well. That’s unexpected, but a step in the right direction, son. Ann and Phil Evans are good people. You better be on your best behaviour. And take that thing out of your nose.”

“Isobel seems perfectly content with all of my piercings, dad.” His tone is biting, and he doesn’t even care about whatever slightly off-colour meaning his father and brother may take from his statement. They’d probably high five him if they thought he was hooking up with girls anyway.

Jesse’s eye twitches in response, and Flint interjects. “This is great, Alex. It’s good to see you spending time with people like that. Are you still in contact with Wyatt’s cousin?”

Alex has to bite back an amused chuckle at how pleased Flint was when he realized Alex had befriended a Long over the summer. If only either of them knew about Forrest’s enthusiasm for giving him handjobs in the more secluded locations around his family’s property. They spend the rest of dinner talking about Forrest’s future in the Marines and whether Alex could be suited for that as well.

He and Isobel start texting back and forth. She sends photos of dresses she’s considering, and is wholly undeterred by his lack of enthusiasm in response. Once she inquires about his feelings regarding bowties and he decides it’s time someone introduces her to rickrolling. 

At lunch on Friday, Kyle is huffing continually as Alex distractedly hunches over his phone, his fingers constantly tapping. “Man, who are you talking to so much these last few days? Is that Forrest? Has it gotten _serious_?” Kyle bumps his shoulder into Alex’s as he teases him about his summer fling turned friend he occasionally sexts with.

Alex shakes his head and sets his phone on the cafeteria table, screen down. “No. I mean, not really? I don’t know. He’s talking about coming out for Thanksgiving and he wants to see me, but we haven’t talked about what we _are_.” Kyle smiles over at him as he sips from his soda, happy to encourage his long-distance almost-relationship. “But that’s not who I’m talking to. Uh, I’ve been texting with my date for homecoming.”

At that pronouncement, Kyle’s eyes go bug-eyed and he proceeds to dramatically spit out his drink on the table. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that? Alex Manes is going to the homecoming dance?”

“Shut up, man. Yeah. It’s weird, but Isobel Evans asked me. Do you think Liz will be okay with her hanging around? They don’t seem to like each other much.”

“Hold on, I’m still trying to process this news, man. You need to back up and explain what the hell happened that led to you being Isobel’s date at all.”

Alex takes a deep breath. He can’t exactly reveal the true details, as Isobel has threatened his manhood if he spills about the letter. But he’s a pretty decent liar, so he weaves a tale about them mocking one another on the bleachers the other day, and how their banter led to Isobel daring him to go to the dance with her. 

Kyle is smiling wide, if a little confused, by the end of it. He thumps Alex on the shoulder and says, “I’m so glad you’re finally going to be coming with me to one of these things! I’m kinda regretting agreeing to go with Liz. But if you’re there, and we get to listen to you and Isobel out-sass each all night, maybe it won’t get weird. But you know Maria’s gonna have a lot to say about this, right?”

“Oh God, don’t remind me. Me, her and Isobel have art together next period and I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be a nightmare.”

Though Alex and Isobel haven’t been speaking much beyond their texting relationship, that changes next period. Isobel notices Maria’s glares from two seats over and jumps out of her seat, sashays over to sprawl an arm around Alex’s shoulders and asks with a serene smile, “How’s my homecoming date doing?”

Alex could murder her for the chaos her loud declaration causes. Maria is huffy the rest of class and there are hushed whispers heard all around while conspiratorial glances are tossed between him and Isobel, who is smiling triumphantly. 

After class Alex thunders after Isobel into the hall. “What the hell was that? You know Maria hates you.”

“Does she? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was jealous.” Isobel’s arms are crossed and her tone is tart. “Which is weird and inappropriate, you know. No wonder you were worried I was trying to make you straight, with friends like that.”

Ignoring the implication, Alex glares. “Look, just let me tell my friends myself, okay? They’re not gonna understand, especially if I can’t explain what is really going on.”

“What is there to understand? This is Roswell. Being out in a town like this has to be a nightmare. It’s a _dance_ , Manes. I’m not asking to be your long-term beard. But hey, if you’d rather go with DeLuca and get caught up in another one of her obnoxious public spectacles, whatever. I don’t need you.”

And just like she did when she left Alex wondering how he’d been roped into this predicament, she spins and sprints away, blonde braid whipping behind her in a storm of vanilla-scented perfume.

_Why is she so damn defensive? Is this what it’s like for Kyle when he dates girls?_

“Alex! Hey Alex!”

He looks up to see Max jogging up to him from the direction Isobel stormed off in a moment earlier, carrying far more books in his arms than his classes likely require.

“Hey, Max.”

“Hey. Listen, I know Isobel can be a lot, but she’s really excited about the dance. I know you’re just going as, like, friends but, um, I just think it’s gonna be really great. For all of us.”

Alex just looks at him for a long few seconds, unsure how to react. Max isn’t the most expressive or talkative guy, yet he’s looking at him with a wary sort of hope. Almost pleading. He presses further by adding, “It just means a lot. That you’re taking her.” 

He lets the boy’s sincerity sink in before slowly nodding. “Yeah, man. Of course.”

Max smiles at him gratefully before continuing down the hallway.

Well. Alex figures he’s really stuck with this drama queen now.

That night he’s in bed, his phone out, his fingers hovering over the keypad. Isobel hasn’t texted since before lunch. Tentatively, he types out a message and sends before he can second guess himself. 

_**[10:37 pm]** we still on for tomorrow? i’ll consider a bowtie if you really insist. but i draw the line at pink._

The way Max looked at him today... well. It kinda freaked him out. Maybe things at the Evans home aren’t as perfect as they appear to be. In any case, when he thinks about it, he’s never heard of Isobel having a date to any dance. She’s always busy being the planner, so no one ever questions it. That one of the prettiest and most popular girls in school is never seen with anyone but her brother and their troublemaking friend who is rumoured to sleep in his truck. 

_Oh my god. Maybe she’s gay too?_

Alex can’t believe he didn’t have this realization earlier. Maybe going after Kyle was just a ploy and all she really wanted was to befriend the only other queer kid in school. It’s a convoluted plan, but it would explain her prickliness and the way Max approached him. 

He finds he can’t sleep, waiting for Isobel to respond. Too wired, he pulls out his laptop, opens an incognito browser, and pulls up the kind of site he doesn’t usually browse unless his father is out of town and he knows he won’t be caught.

There is still no response when he is done. He changes into clean boxers and a Danger! At the Picture Show shirt from the 2006 Albuquerque show he and Kyle attended together under Jim Valenti’s chagrined supervision.

He falls asleep without a response, but sets his alarm just in case. When it jolts him awake, he is greeted by a message from Isobel:

_**[1:13 am]** we’ll be there at 7:45 am sharp. be ready. _

He finds himself cackling and jumping out of bed, excited for a day of freedom out from under his father’s watchful eye.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Isobel go shopping in Santa Fe and bond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took so long and I'm so sorry.
> 
> A few details about this AU: Maria and Isobel are not related, Jim refused to join Project Shepherd when he was young (so he is unaware of Caulfield's existence) and Jesse's tip-off about aliens still residing Roswell would have been Rosa's murder, which doesn't happen.

“So. Alex Manes. He’s certainly an interesting choice of date.”

Isobel rolls her eyes from the passenger seat at the feigned nonchalance in her mother’s voice.

“He’s great. And Max and Michael _both_ gave their seal of approval, mom. Is that not enough for you?”

“Of course, honey! You know I only want what’s best for you. If going to the dance with this boy will make you happy, then I’m happy.” There is a stretch of silence as they turn towards the western suburbs where the Manes live, but Isobel is waiting for the other shoe to drop. She knows her mother, and she most certainly has more to say. They’re only a few streets away when she hears her mom’s intake of breath that comes before something Isobel doesn’t want to hear, and she says, “So. I hear he has piercings. Sounds edgy.”

“Really, mom?”

“Wha-”

“If he’s wearing eyeliner, I demand you do _not_ bring it up. Alex is actually really cool, unlike most of the kids we go to school with. You’re the one who said you hoped I would start, what was it you said – _‘opening up to the possibilities of life on earth_?’ He’s Kyle Valenti’s best friend, and we trust the Valentis. Doesn’t it make sense we can trust someone _they_ trust too?” 

“I wasn’t judging, Isobel! I was simply _commenting_. You always assume the worst of me!” 

She glances over at her mother, who is staring straight ahead as they pull up to the curb in front of Alex’s house. She sees her mom’s defences coming up and sighs. “That’s not what I’m doing, I swear. I just- you _did_ say you hoped I would make some friends beyond Max and Michael, and that’s what I’m doing. I know he’s not as palatable to your friends as his brothers with their military-issue haircuts and lack of handcuff chokers-”

“Handcuff _what_?”

“-but I think he could, I don’t know...understand me. Us. I don’t feel judged with him the way I do with everyone else. I think he’s safe. Him _and_ Kyle.”

Her mom’s face went soft at her words, and Isobel knew she’d won her over. Putting the car in park, her mom leaned over to give her forehead a quick peck. “That’s all I want for you, Isobel. After everything you’ve been through, your safety is our number one priority.”

Isobel smiles tightly in response as her mom hops out of the car at Alex’s father stiffly walking out his front door and offering a slight wave. 

She knows her mom means well, she really does. She’s been trying so hard since she told her the truth this summer, and as grateful as Isobel is, it can be suffocating to always be reassuring her. Sometimes she just wants to _be_. She thought once she no longer had to hide the truth about her heritage from her parents that she would be able to relax. But with all the baggage that accompanied that particular truth, including her father moving out and her mother spending so much time talking security and genealogy with Jim Valenti and Mr. Sanders, it seems she spends more time reassuring her mother that she’s okay than focusing on being her full self. 

It’s exhausting.

And at the same time, it’s still somehow better than the hiding and lying she’d been doing for years. 

She checks her purple flip phone. It’s 7:42 am, and when she glances back at the house, Alex is charging out his front door, looking mildly dishevelled yet bright-eyed.

Grabbing the two soy chai lattes in the cupholders, she lightly springs from the car, jogs over to Alex and presents him with the cup. He looks down at it quizzically, and she plasters on a smile. “You’ll love it. Just give it a try, Manes.”

Their parents are chatting quietly by the drivers’ door, and they stand a few feet away in the driveway, studiously ignoring them.

With a suspicious expression, he takes a sip. She silently notes that she hasn’t seen him without gelled hair since maybe sometime sophomore year. He looks younger. “No eyeliner today, huh? You didn’t want to go all Danger! At The Picture Show for Ann Evans?”

Eyes rolling, he offers a rueful smile. “I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the queen bee of the Roswell society ladies, so I figured flipping up my septum and skipping out on makeup might be the safe choice.”

“Honestly, I think she may have been excited to see you _all dolled up,_ as she put it. She called you edgy on the way over.”

An eyebrow shooting up, he huffs a chuckle. “God, if only I could hear my dad’s reaction to that.” Isobel senses some tension behind his lightheartedness and glances over at their parents. Master Sergeant Manes is watching them as Mrs. Evans breezily chatters on. He’s smiling, but she sees it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. She doesn’t know why, but feeling his gaze on her, even briefly, sends a shiver running up her spine. 

She distracts them with school gossip while they wait out their parents. They don’t talk about Isobel snapping at him the day before, and she’s grateful he’s letting it drop. As she listens to him tell a story about some jock tripping over himself to ask Maria DeLuca to the dance and being put in his place with a sharp retort, Isobel realizes how happy she is that Alex stomped up to her with fire in his eyes and her letter in his hand. Because, despite the stern lecture she gave Max about dropping the letter she agonized over in the wrong locker, bombarding him with inane texts and getting to snicker at his snarky responses has been the kind of fun her life has lacked for awhile now. 

Despite going to school together for years, Isobel had only really started paying attention to her peers when senior year started a couple months ago. It just so happened that her first day back started with a panic attack, hiding in the eraser room to catch her breath, and accidentally overhearing Kyle Valenti comforting a shaken Alex Manes. She could make out their vague silhouettes through the frosted glass and their voices were muffled, but the tone in his voice – there was something so tender about it, the way Kyle took care of him. She’d seen Max attempt to show that kind of concern for Michael before, but otherwise, she’d never seen boys behave that way with one another. She could tell from their dark shadows that Kyle had his arm around Alex, and they were leaning into one another. She swore she could hear sniffles from Alex as he leaned his head into Kyle’s neck.

She couldn’t stop thinking about it for days, so she started watching them from afar. Nothing creepy – at least, _she_ didn’t think so. She just liked to see the way Kyle would angle his body in a protective stance when they walked down crowded hallways together. How closely they sat together at lunch and how casually Alex would grab Kyle’s food from his lunch tray, while Kyle would only laugh and shake his head.

It took awhile before she understood why she was so fascinated with them. Even before feeling the first stirrings of a crush years ago or the more recent yearning to be touched in a particular way, some part of her believed she could never have intimacy with a human being. It was something that, without even conscious thought, she simply knew was out of her grasp. 

Then this summer happened, and she began questioning all the assumptions she’d made about what her life could be and the relationships she could have – the sudden appearance of her mom’s fiercely protective instinct towards the three of them, even when it meant potentially ending her marriage; Mr. Sanders overhearing them panicking at the junkyard because Mr. Evans was talking about going to the FBI, and proceeding to tell them soothing and beautiful stories of their mothers dancing and laughing and falling in love decades ago on a farm not too far away; Jim Valenti disregarding the horror story passed down though his family of Hector Valenti’s violent death at the hands of an alien to offer assistance to kids frightened of an adult they thought they could trust. 

Isobel had grown up navigating her mistrust of everyone around her. She knew that Michael and Max could be trusted, but overall, boys were dangerous. Men, too. In all sorts of ways that Isobel hadn’t truly understood until long after the night the drifter dragged her away, intent on doing unimaginable things to her. 

Isobel had never believed women were much better, either.

Yet after all the changes this summer, and finally being freed of the specter haunting her since the drifter, she feels lighter. More capable, more open. Like maybe she could have the things she wants but never dared believe she could have.

And what she wants is a boy who treats the people he loves, the way Kyle Valenti treats his best friend. 

Mrs. Evans and Master Sergeant Manes soon say their goodbyes, and they climb back into the car to settle in for the three hour drive. Mrs. Evans passes the time making inoffensive chitchat while Alex politely provides bland parent-appropriate responses. Isobel interjects with sass every now and again to provoke Alex into showing a bit of personality, but he doesn’t budge, so she just sits back and enjoys watching his performance. 

Once they arrive in Santa Fe, Isobel goes into take-charge mode, whipping out her phone to show off the map she’d created of all the best boutiques they need to check. In between eye rolls and lighthearted mockery, Alex follows the orders of the two women who are clearly used to giving them.

They spend a couple hours tossing jackets and ties and cufflinks Alex’s way, then ordering him to stand still and pose next to Isobel as she shows off her various dress options in the mirror. The decision comes down to a short silver flapper dress and a two-piece emerald green ball gown. Isobel and her mom spend forever listing the many pros and cons to themselves in the mirror, while Alex rolls his eyes and scrolls through his phone while sometimes adjusting the silver bowtie Isobel positively _shrieked_ over. 

In the middle of a fierce debate about the aesthetic quality of the flapper look, Alex huffs and interrupts. “Maybe we should take a break for lunch so you can both really contemplate this monumental decision we’re all agonizing over.”

Mrs. Evans’ eyebrows shoot up in impressed amusement and Isobel sets her lips in a tight line, about to fire back when her mom speaks over her. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, Alex. I know Isobel had a few places in mind, so why don’t you two go have lunch on your own? I’ll put these on hold so we can come back. I have a few errands to run anyway and we can meet up again in a few hours.”

“That would be awesome, mom.”

She hands over her credit card to Isobel, who plasters on an even brighter smile in response.

“Thanks, Mrs. Evans!” Alex calls over his shoulder as he practically runs to the door of the boutique to escape.

They’re quiet as they walk a short way to a Mexican restaurant Isobel had researched when she couldn’t sleep the night before, and she decides to break the ice. “So, are you overwhelmed yet?”

“By you? You wish. My gay tortured emo vibe cancels out your ice princess vibe.” They’re waiting to be seated by a hostess when Isobel side-eyes the comment and notices Alex goes still, his eyes widening in a sort of panic. 

“I think you might be right.” She offers the comment lightly, but Alex jerks his head up to stare into her eyes, something intense and unreadable in his expression. 

She wants to ask what has him so startled, but the hostess greets them before she can speak and they are seated in silence. Without the protection of their guarded school personas and the buffer of her mother’s airy small talk, they fall into a prolonged silence. 

But Isobel tires of it quickly, and pulls her shoulders back before looking him in the eye across the table and asking, “What did I do to upset you?”

He frowns. “You didn’t do anything. I just- I haven’t said that word out loud before. Except to Kyle.” For a moment she can’t place what he means and tries replaying his words in her head to grasp his meaning. He picks up on her confusion and offers a chuckle that carries with it a mild bitterness. “Gay, Isobel. The word _gay._ ”

“Oh.” She smiles ruefully. “Well, feel free to say it as often as you like with me. We’re not at school. We’re not even in Roswell.” She pauses for a moment, thoughtful. “Do you ever feel like it’s so much safer the further you get from home?”

“Of course. Always.”

Despite always knowing there was so much lurking under Alex’s angsty surface, she is caught off guard by his words, offered without thought or hesitation. As if it were an obvious truth.

But it isn’t obvious, not to her. Safety has become so complicated since they discovered the _whole_ truth. 

The only place she feels some vague shade of safety now is at home with Max, her mom, and Michael, who is spending entire weeks sleeping in the guest room before his pride overtakes him and he briefly returns to his truck. Her mom’s long-held hesitance about her friendship with Michael has faded away entirely since learning the truth, and she even set up a cot in Isobel’s room so the three of them can be together when one of them has a nightmare.

Isobel and Alex share a smile before each averting their eyes down towards their menus, unsure how to handle a moment of unexpected intimacy. 

After ordering their food, Isobel decides to cut through the small talk. “So, your dad seems like a hardass. He must hate this whole look you’ve got going on these days.”

Alex shrugs. “He hates most things that are fun and good.”

“Like your flair for sartorial flamboyance?”

He frowns. “I’m not sure emo goth counts as flamboyance.”

“Close enough. My mom would never allow me to leave the house looking so _different._ ” She emphasizes her last word with a roll of her eyes. 

“My dad has tried pretty hard to stop me. He just didn’t realize how much I could take, and that I would put the eyeliner back on the next day.” Again, Alex freezes after the words are out. He grabs for his water glass and takes a few gulps in succession.

She frowns, seeing his immediate physical reaction. She figured Master Sergeant Jesse Manes was a jerk, but it sounds like it may be more than that. Alex appears almost panicked at having revealed too much. She swallows down the lump in her throat and decides not to leave him hanging too long. If she wants to make friends, she needs to be willing to be honest. “My dad left us this summer. Packed up his stuff and moved into an apartment across town.”

He is startled at the confession, staring into her eyes and trying to gauge why she would admit to such a thing. She bites her tongue and dives in further. “The thing is, something bad happened to me. Had been happening for- well, for a few years. _Someone_ bad, and I finally told my parents this summer. My mom has been amazing, more than I thought she ever could be, but dad… Well. He wasn’t.” She is watching her own fingers scratch at the cloth napkin in front of her, avoiding Alex’s intent eyes. “The problems I was having- well, I think my dad blames me. I think he thought I brought it on myself. Mom disagrees, but sometimes.. I don’t know.” She sighs deeply, enough that her shoulders slump back against her chair. “The thing is, parents suck. You’re lucky if you get a good one, and most of us just aren’t that lucky.”

Alex is silent for a moment, licks his lips. “I’m sorry about what you went through. And about your dad. That really sucks. My mom left too, when I was eight. Do you think your parents will get divorced?”

Isobel bites her lip and sighs. “Probably.” She looks down at her nails, studies them for a few long moments. Without looking up, she asks, “Are you going to ask what happened to me?”

His voice holds a challenge when he responds, though it is not unkind. “Are _you_ going to ask what my dad does to me?”

_Does_ to _me._ Isobel hates to think about what those words mean. About the sort of consequences Alex’s defiance garners behind closed doors. 

They leave both questions unanswered as their food arrives. After a few minutes of quietly chewing, she notices Alex clear his throat as if he’s steeling himself to speak. “So. Kyle, huh?”

She scowls. “What about him? I thought you were okay with my seduction plan.”

He rolls his eyes. “I mean, why _Kyle_? What is it about him?”

She pauses, unsure how to answer. Max asked her the same question just a few weeks earlier and she brushed him off with a joke about hot quarterbacks looking good on her arm. She knows Alex won’t accept that, but at the same time, she knows she’s not ready to be honest. She can barely put into words what it is about Kyle Valenti that’s so intriguing and keeps her up at night. Not to mention, as cool as Alex Manes seems, he’s still Kyle’s best friend. His loyalty is to him, and she can’t be sure he won’t spill every embarrassing detail she shares with him. 

She drops her utensils on the table, stares down a manicured nail. Her mom has been taking her for weekly manicures since sometime in August - an effort to make everything seem normal when it is anything but. “He just seems…” She trails off. She won’t say the words on the tip of her tongue. He seems like someone who wouldn’t see her as weak for not knowing her own mind. Like someone who would take care of her without making her feel less than. Like someone with a good heart, like his father. “Nice. He just seems nice.” She finishes feebly, offering a weak shrug. 

He stares at her, his expression skeptical. “You know, Kyle was my first kiss.”

“Oh.” She doesn’t know quite how to react to that information, depending on where he’s going with this. If he’s about to say he and Kyle have actually been secretly dating for years, she might throw her virgin margarita in his face and leave him stranded in Santa Fe. 

He smiles, a bit of mischief underlying it. “Yeah. The summer I turned 13, we spent the whole summer building this treehouse in Kyle’s backyard. The night it was finally finished, we were up there celebrating with pizza and some tequila Kyle pilfered from his parents’ place and I just, well. I leaned in. We were sitting there, patting ourselves on the back and...It wasn’t even a good moment for it, I just wanted to try, you know?” Isobel tilted her head as he pauses and gazes beyond her shoulder somewhere, an almost dreamy glint in his eyes. “He didn’t react well. He shoved me away, and I fell over.” 

She felt herself physically recoil. That’s not where she thought this story would go. Alex hasn’t lost the dreamy expression, though there is an obvious tinge of sadness as he continues. “There was this split second when he seemed sorry, like maybe it would be okay. But instead he told me in this cold voice I’d never heard from him before that I needed to leave. My dad got so angry when he realized we’d gotten into a fight. He blamed me, told me I should be grateful that a kid from a good family would be my friend in the first place.” His shoulders lift as he sighs deeply and gives a slight shake of his head. “He showed up at my house at, like, midnight after not talking to me for two weeks. Did the whole throwing pebbles at my window thing and climbed up into my room. Turns out Liz and Maria had cornered him and demanded an explanation for why he wasn’t talking to me. He didn’t tell them what happened, but they made him feel guilty enough that when his parents asked what was wrong, he told them. I guess his dad was really upset that his son would behave that way. Anyway, he apologized. He said he wished he could change how he reacted. And you know, I thought that was it. I was so happy to just have my friend back, that I hadn’t screwed it up and he didn’t hate me or think I was disgusting. But you know what he did next?”

Isobel nods for him to continue, caught up in the story. “He said he knew he was my first kiss and he wanted a do-over. Even though he wasn’t interested in boys and he only liked me as a friend, that I deserved a perfect first kiss I could tell stories about. I think he got the idea from a movie or something, cause no way did the Kyle Valenti I knew back then come up with that on his own. Anyway, he kissed me. And it _was_ perfect.” His eyes had become unfocused and bright while telling the story, and Isobel bites her lip seeing how happy he is to let that happy memory wash over him again. The spell soon breaks and he looks her in the eye, a sudden challenge appearing there. “Surprised? I bet that wasn’t the story you expected about your hot quarterback.”

She can’t help the giddy smile that spreads across her face. “Not surprised at all. He’s exactly the person I thought he was.”

He tilts his head and surveys her, curious. “You really _do_ like him, don’t you?”

“What, you didn’t believe me? You really thought someone like me would write a love letter like I’m some pining brunette in a Jane Austen novel if I wasn’t _so_ far gone?”

He opens his mouth to speak, but quickly closes it. Ponders something for a moment before trying again. “I guess I thought you may have had other reasons for...all this.” He gestures vaguely. “You’ve never really been seen with guys. Dating, anything like that. I guess I thought the fact that I somehow ended up with that letter signed with your name was maybe intentional. Maybe you wanted a friend who was, you know, _like_ you.”

Isobel frowns. What is he talking about? What other reason would she have had? And what does he mean by _like him?_ What could he possibly-

Oh. _Oh._

“Um. I’m not.. I’m not gay, Alex.” She stumbles over the words, contrite in her tone at the mildly bereft look on his face as he takes in her words. She bites her lip before continuing. “It must be really lonely. Even with your friends.”

He looks down. “Yeah.”

A heavy silence came over the table. She doesn’t know what to say. And she certainly wasn’t about to bring up the few times she’d fantasized about Maria DeLuca in her tight gym uniform, cause even she didn’t understand what the hell _that_ was about. They ate to fill the silence until Isobel broke it tentatively. “I know it doesn’t help right now, while you’re stuck in Roswell but...it’s senior year. You must be planning to get the hell out of here, right?”

Alex scowls. “My dad and my brothers have been contemplating whether my future lies in the Air Force or the Marines, so yeah. I’ll definitely be getting out of here.”

“I don’t imagine eyeliner is regulation in the military. What do you actually want to do?”

“Music. I like writing, but sometimes I think I might be a good producer too. But I’d want to go to school, and dad would never let me. I don’t know, sometimes I think I should just run away in the middle of the night. Not even graduate, just steal a car and drive straight to New York or L.A.”

She chews on her lower lip, thinking about all the college websites she and her mother have been scrolling through together. Even though her mother had argued she could stay home and get a diploma at a local school if she really wanted one, she agreed to a deal where, if Isobel won at least a partial scholarship to a top choice school, her mom would fund the rest. UCLA and NYU were among her top choices. “Is there anything you could do that would make your dad budge? So you could go to college?”

He laughs bitterly and shrugs. “Be straight. Play along with his idea of what a man should be.”

She had a hunch that would be his answer, and before she has time to overthink it, she voices her idea. “What if I pretend to be your girlfriend? He’s already pretty happy that you’re going to the dance with me, right?”

Eyebrows furrowed, he chuckles. “You know that’s an insane idea, Isobel. It would have to last until after college acceptances are sent out. And didn’t you tell me just yesterday you weren’t gonna be my full-time beard?”

She rolls her eyes. “That was before I knew your entire dream in life was at stake, Manes. I’m sure Kyle would be willing to go along with it. My mom, too! If she had even an inkling of what your dad was really like, she would totally encourage you to get away. Besides, she’s relieved to see me _opening up to my peers_ and all that.” Air quotes accompany her last words, along with an eye roll. “She would probably go along with it just because it makes me seem like a normal girl.”

“Are you not a _normal_ girl, Isobel Evans?”

Ignoring the question, she flashes her brightest, most encouraging smile. “Just think about it, Alex. Okay? Who knows. It could even be fun!” 

He laughs ruefully. “You’re not who I thought you were.”

“Neither are you.” They freeze for a moment, staring at one another across the table. Isobel silently adds _I didn’t think you’d be my first real friend._

But she doesn’t tell him that as they clink their margarita glasses with a shared giggle and settle into a bantering rhythm for the rest of their lunch. 


End file.
